From Lancashire, December 20. The condition of the working 
class in England is becoming daily more precarious. At the 
moment, true, it does not seem to be so bad; most people in the 
textile districts have work; for every 10 workers in Manchester 
there is perhaps only one unemployed, the proportion is probably 
the same in Bolton and Birmingham, and when the English 
worker is employed he is satisfied. And he can well be satisfied, at 
any rate the textile worker, if he compares his lot with the fate of 
his comrades in Germany and France. The worker there earns just 
enough to allow him to live on bread and potatoes; he is lucky if 
he can buy meat once a week. Here he eats beef every day and 
gets a more nourishing joint for his money than the richest man 
in Germany. He drinks tea twice a day and still has enough money 
left over to be able to drink a glass of porter at midday and 
brandy and water in the evening. This is how most of the 
Manchester workers live who work a twelve-hour day. But how 
long will it last? The slightest fluctuation in trade leaves thousands 
of workers destitute; their modest savings are soon used up and 
then they are in danger of starving to death. And a crisis of this 
kind is bound to occur again in a few years’ time. The same 
expanded production which is now giving work to “paupers” and 
is counting on the Chinese market is bound to create a huge mass 
of commodities and a slump in sales, which will again result in 
general destitution among the workers. For the moment the textile 
workers are in the best position. In the pits the coal-miners have 
to perform the heaviest and most unhealthy work for low wages. 
As a result this section of the working class harbours far more 
wrath against the wealthy than other working men, and for this 
reason is especially noted for robbery, assaults against richer 
people, etc. Thus, here in Manchester there is real fear of the 

The Condition of the Working Class in England 379 

“Bolton people”* who also proved to be the most determined of 
all during the summer disturbances.’ The iron-workers have a 
similar reputation, as in general do all those engaged in hard 
physical labour. If all these are only just able to exist now, what 
will become of them if there is the slightest slump in business? 
True, the workers have organised their own mutual benefit funds, 
which are augmented by weekly contributions and are intended to 
support the unemployed; but these only suffice when the factories 
are working well, for even then there are always enough destitute. 
When unemployment becomes general, even this source of relief 
dries up. At the moment the scapegoat is Scotland, where the 
factories are coming to a standstill, for when English industry 
expands, there is always some region or other which suffers. 
Unemployment is increasing daily all round Glasgow. In Paisley, a 
relatively small town, there were 7,000 unemployed a fortnight 
ago; now there are already 10,000. The grants from mutual 
benefit funds, small enough in any case, have been cut by half, 
because funds are running out. At a meeting of the noblemen and 
gentlemen of the county it was decided to organise subscriptions 
which are expected to yield £3,000; but this method, too, is 
already outworn and the gentlemen themselves secretly admit that 
they do not expect to collect more than £400. What all this boils 
down to is that England with her industry has burdened herself 
not only with a large class of the unpropertied, but among these 
always a considerable class of paupers which she cannot get rid of. 
These people have to rough it on their own; the state abandons 
them, even pushes them away. Who can blame them, if the men 
have recourse to robbery or burglary, the women to theft and 
prostitution? But the state does not care whether starvation is 
bitter or sweet; it locks these people up in prison or sends them to 
penal settlements, and when it releases them it has the satisfaction 
of having converted people without work into people without 
morals. And the curious thing about the whole story is that the 
sagacious Whig and the “radical” are still unable to understand 
where Chartism comes from with the country in such a state, and 
how the Chartists can possibly imagine they have even the slightest 
chance in England. 

Marked with the sign "x" time 

* The words “Bolton people” are in English in the original.— Ed.